by Dave Daren
“Nice to meet you,” the guide said as I stepped into the lobby.
“You, too,” I replied automatically.
I really needed to talk to my client, but I was definitely not going to do that anywhere where Landis might be able to hear me. So I waited impatiently for the elevator to appear and then listened to one-side of a conversation about a failed search for a decent bra during the trip to the lobby before I could finally step outside and find a quiet spot near a fountain to sit down and call Anthony.
“You’re alive,” Anthony said when he answered.
“You weren’t kidding when you called him a shark,” I remarked. “I’m surprised they didn’t toss chum in the room instead of M&M’s.”
“I’m not a big fan of Landis, but he is good at what he does,” Anthony replied. “And he’s loyal to dad, as far as I can tell.”
“You don’t sound certain about that, though,” I pointed out.
“There have been a few weird things in the past,” Anthony said. “But I think dad straightened it out.”
“Like what?” I pressed.
“There were some questions about how some of the income was being moved,” my client explained.
“And he’s still alive?” I asked in surprise.
Anthony chuckled, and it wasn’t hard to picture in the leather chair when he did so.
“Yeah, well,” Anthony finally said. “Landis can be a real smooth talker when he wants to be.”
“We should meet,” I said as I spotted the chocolate goddess leaving the building and heading towards the sidewalk. I watched her until she trotted across the street and ducked inside a bath shop.
“Preferably somewhere where I won’t have an audience,” I added.
“Sure, I can send a car to pick you up,” my client offered.
“No,” I replied. “I can be out on Long Island by the time it gets here,” I said. “I’ll take the train out. You can have your guys meet me at the station.”
“Just text me and let me know which one you’ll be on,” Anthony replied.
I stayed in my spot for a few minutes after I hung up until I saw Monel leave the store. She darted across the street once more with a small bag in one hand and a bottle of hand sanitizer in the other. I wasn’t sure if she had noticed me on her way out, but our eyes met as she started across the plaza towards the building’s entrance. She broke stride for a moment, and I thought she might come over and say something to me, but she did a little shimmy with her shoulders and then she continued on as if she hadn’t noticed me.
Since Tabitha wasn’t going to talk, I made my way crosstown to Grand Central and checked the boards for the next train heading towards Riverhead. I still had some time before it left and I thought about talking to Francie’s friend Nera again. The lanky tennis player had been happy to talk with me the first time I had interviewed her, but I wasn’t so sure she’d welcome a second interruption at her job. And to be honest, I didn’t really have any more questions for her at the moment. So instead, I visited Financier on my own for another cup of their delicious coffee and picked up a coconut macaroon as well.
The trip out to Long Island was quiet and passed quickly. It was still too early for the first of the evening rush hour crowds so I found a seat far enough away from the other commuters that I could sip what was left of my coffee in peace while I watched the homes and then the hills roll by. By the time I stepped off the train, I’d put together a list of questions for Anthony starting with what he wanted to do about Landis. Not that Anthony had the authority to dump the firm while Salvatore was still alive, but I knew there were ways he could sideline them. What really mattered was how far Anthony would be willing to go.
I spotted a black Chrysler 300 idling in the parking lot and started towards it. It had tinted windows like the rest of the seemingly endless fleet of Febbo cars, so I couldn’t see who the driver was. I’d gotten to know a few of the guys over the last month, and I’d quickly identified the ones I liked and the ones that made me wish I’d driven my Volvo there myself.
I stopped at the bottom of the steps to toss my coffee cup into a nearby trash can when I spotted another black 300 pull into the lot. I didn’t think much of it as I started towards my ride, since black 300’s were popular models.
“Hey, Morgan, where you going?” a man’s voice with a heavy Long Island accent called out.
I looked up in surprise as I was about to open the back door of my ride to see Abel Feinman leaning out of the driver’s side window of the second car. Despite his name, Abel looked like a Sicilian, with thick black hair, a sculpted profile and a devilish glint in his eyes when he laughed. He was one of the drivers I liked since he always had a slew of jokes he wanted to test out and the drive was always smooth even when he was rocketing along the backroads at an unsafe speed.
“Abel?” I said in surprise as I looked at the car I had been about to get into.
I started to back away from the mystery car as the passenger side door on Abel’s car opened and a three-hundred pound muscle man I knew only as Ox started to step from the car. At the same time, I saw the passenger side door on the mystery car start to open, and a man I’d never seen before started to get out.
There wasn’t more than a second to register what the stranger looked like and if I’d been asked to describe him to a sketch artist, I don’t know that I could have done much better than to say a thatch of blondish hair, a pair of angry brown eyes and a very flat face. Most of my attention was on the gun he had in his hand, which I could easily identify as a standard Glock nine millimeter. Even as I started to back away, the man’s other large hand snaked towards me, and acting on instinct alone, I swatted at it with my briefcase.
“Morgan!” Ox bellowed from somewhere not that far behind me.
I was still backing up but I kept my eyes locked on the man with the gun. He started to lunge towards me with his hand outstretched, ready to latch onto my arm and drag me into the car. There were more angry voices now as Abel and someone I guessed must be the driver of the mystery car started to yell, followed by gunshots, but all I could focus on was the man in front of me.
The briefcase was the only weapon I had, and I swung it at the man’s head with every ounce of strength I had. There was a crunching sound as the hard-shell case clipped the side of the man’s head and smashed into his nose. Blood spurted from both nostrils and turned the lower half of his face red. His eyelids slammed shut for a moment, and I thought for sure the man would topple over.
I started to swing again, but one eye popped open and then one arm came up to block the blow while the other hand raised the gun towards my head. The briefcase collided with the man’s arm with a dull thud, but I saw him wince as the jolt moved up his arm. I was already moving forward by then, and I pushed my weight against him as he tried to keep his footing on the curb.
He still had the gun, though, and for a moment, I lost sight of it as I used the briefcase as a shield between us. The flat-faced man growled as the case caught him in the chest, but he pushed back just as hard, and suddenly I was the one who was forced to back up. I saw the gun then as the man freed his arm and started to raise the weapon again. I made one last desperate push against his chest, then ducked beneath his raised arm and head butted him.
The flat-faced man grunted and stumbled backward a step, so I brought a fist around and punched him in his already shattered nose. The second blow didn’t deliver a crunch so much as a grinding sound as the rest of the bone and cartilage gave way.
“Thit!” the flat-faced man lisped as he tried to swivel away.
“Get in the car!” someone else yelled.
I had no idea if that was directed at me or the man I had been fighting, but I decided it was good advice. The man was trying to raise the gun again even as he retreated towards the still open car door. I took another swing with the briefcase, this time at his gun hand, and there was a satisfying ‘oomph’ as the case smashed into the hand. The gun clattered to the ground, and
the flat-faced man howled in frustration.
But the mystery car was starting to pull away, and if the flat-faced man didn’t want to miss his ride, he had to get inside. He barely made it into the seat as the car barrelled towards the exit, the passenger side door still open and one leg still sticking out of the open door.
The mystery car pulled back onto the road as the tires squealed in protest and the engine revved to an ear-piercing pitch. Smoke followed in the car’s wake, as did the sound of more gunfire. I saw a pair of holes appear in the trunk, and then the 300 was gone as it tore off down the road in a cloud of exhaust and hot rubber.
“Hey, Hunter,” Abel called again.
I turned around slowly and saw Abel and Ox standing by the Chrysler that was supposed to be my ride. Ox had a thin trail of blood along one side of his head and there were bullet holes in the windshield. The glass was cracked and fissures spread out across the whole surface, like the crazed pattern on a frozen lake just before it breaks apart.
“We gotta go,” Abel urged as sirens sounded in the distance.
“Shouldn’t we wait for the police?” I asked as I looked around.
I spotted the gun lying a short distance away and started to move towards it.
“Leave it,” Abel said sharply. “Just get in.”
I finally obeyed and trotted towards the car. Ox held the rear door open for me, then slammed it shut as soon as I was inside. Abel shot forward while Ox was still getting into his own seat, and I imagine our escape looked very much like that of the other Chrysler as we swerved onto the road to the sound of squealing tires and the smell of burning rubber.
Abel tore down the main street for nearly a mile before we entered a more rural area and he turned onto a smaller road. He drove past an organic dairy farm and a potato farm, then turned up what looked like a private road for a vineyard. We sped past fruit-filled vines and sent a family of pheasants flying for cover, then made another hard turn that led us along a rutted path lined with some sort of nut trees. I hadn’t had time to put my seatbelt on before we’d made our dramatic exit from the station and so I bounced around in the back seat as the car chugged across the uneven ground.
Abel was pitched forward in the driver’s seat as he tried to negotiate the rough trail through the skewed optics of the destroyed glass. I was about to suggest we take a moment to stop and knock the glass out, but something about the frantic look on Abel’s face and Ox’s troubled glances out the back window kept me quiet. After I’d bounced into the roof for the third time, Abel finally left the rough road and pulled into another private drive, though this one was wider and lined with crushed shells.
Ox seemed to relax at the point, and his attention shifted towards the surrounding view. Not that there was much to see. If it was part of a farm, there was nothing that indicated what was being raised or grown there. It just looked like a long line of small, tree-covered hills with the occasional bit of shrubbery thrown in for good measure.
I had no idea where we were or how close we were to the Febbo estate. We’d taken a wrong turn out of the station, and while I’d recognized where we were in the town, once we’d hit the country roads, I had no concept of our location.
“Are we close?” I finally asked when I stopped bouncing long enough to speak without biting my tongue.
“Nearly there,” Abel said as he swerved to avoid a large pothole.
“Who were those guys?” I asked when I righted myself.
“I recognized the one who came after you,” Ox mused. “He’s a Serb named Krycek. Last I heard he was working for the Durantes.”
“Why the hell would the Durantes want to pick me up?” I asked in surprise.
“Who knows,” Ox said. “But my guess is that they wanted you to pass along a message to Anthony.”
“What, the Durantes don’t have phones?” I sniffed.
The car was quiet for a moment, and then Ox started to chuckle. A moment later, Abel did as well, and then I finally joined in. By the time the Chrysler was slipping up the drive to the Febbo estate, the three of us were laughing hard enough to bring tears to our eyes.
We were met by a small army of men when we finally came to a halt, and I was swept inside with an armed escort while Abel and Ox were still pulling themselves from the damaged car. My escort, a gym rat named Angelo, led me up the stairs and towards the office without saying a single word. He knocked politely, and opened the door for me to enter.
I was ready to tell Anthony about my grand adventure at the train station and to hear what he had to say about Ox’s identification. But all of those grand plans went to hell when I realized Anthony wasn’t alone. Kroger was there as well, standing behind Anthony’s chair. Salvatore’s second had a smug look on his face as he looked towards the door. I saw him react, though, as I stepped past Angelo, and I could swear it was the face of a man who had just realized his best laid plans had failed.
“Geez, Hunter,” Anthony said as he stood up and moved towards me. “When the guys at the end of the drive called in to say the car had been damaged, I thought they meant a dent or something. Now I hear you guys were shot at?”
“There was another Chrysler waiting at the station,” I said as I kept my eyes on Kroger. “It looked just like one of yours. I was about to get in when your guys pulled up.”
“Did you get a look at them?” Anthony asked.
“Mostly just the passenger,” I replied. “But Ox knew him. He said the guy’s name was Krycek. He’s a Serbian who’s now working for the Durantes.”
“So much for the peace,” Anthony muttered as he led me towards one of the armchairs.
“Why would the Durantes do this?” Kroger asked.
“I don’t know,” Anthony replied sharply. “Does it matter?”
“It does,” Kroger insisted. “We need to be sure we send our response to the right family.”
“He was a Serbian,” I said. “He could be working for anyone.”
“True enough,” the second in command agreed. “There’s no loyalty there.”
“But you hire them,” I added.
Kroger scowled at me, then turned towards his temporary boss.
“Not for anything important, I don’t,” the lieutenant said. “Just for protecting shipments and such. Nothing that requires any brains.”
“So you’ve told me,” Anthony replied in a tired voice. It was obvious that he and Kroger, and probably Salvatore, had been through this discussion before.
“Of course, if someone wanted to make it look like the Durantes were behind this, it would probably be easy enough to convince Krycek to do it for the right price,” I mused. “As you said, there’s no loyalty there.”
“Or he may not even be with the Durantes any more,” Kroger added as a speculative look came over Anthony’s face. “We may never know who sent him.”
My client turned to look at his lieutenant. Something flickered in his gray-green eyes, though I couldn’t define exactly what I saw there. He rubbed a finger absently along the edge of one of his jug ears, then sat down in his chair again.
“You sound like you have your own suspicions,” my client finally said.
He pinned me to my chair with a hard stare that was frighteningly similar to his father’s. Not for the first time I realized that his close resemblance to his mother was mostly on the surface. Buried deep beneath the mop of brown hair and the soft features was the hard steel of a mafioso.
“I’ve told you my suspicions before,” I replied. “And I think the fact that a Serb was involved only bolsters my view.”
“What the hell are you saying?” Kroger demanded.
“I’m saying,” I said calmly, “that you’re the one who set this up.”
Chapter 20
Anthony, to his credit, managed to look like the picture of serenity. Kroger, on the other hand, looked as if he was in the middle of a heart attack. His face turned even more crimson, his eyes glazed over, and his hands flapped uselessly at this side. I could have
sworn his orange hairs stood up, like a cat that’s been startled, but it was hard to be sure given how short he kept it.
“Gentlemen,” Anthony said calmly.
“‘Gentleman’ my ass,” Kroger bellowed as he gained control of his right hand and jabbed his index finger in my direction. “This asshole comes waltzing in here and thinks just because he got you off on a trumped up charge, he can just say whatever he wants. That’s bullshit!”
“Who else hires Serbians?” I demanded.
“Just about everybody!” Kroger retorted.
“Ox did say that he thought this Krycek was now working for the Durantes,” my client interjected.
“But the Serbians aren’t loyal,” I pointed out. “Not like the old families.”
“So anyone could have hired him,” the orange-haired man snapped. “Why would you think it was me?”
“You have a lot of good reasons,” I said. “Certainly more than anyone else. And of all the people who have an interest in how this plays out, you’re the one who checks all the boxes.”
The red color had started to drain from Kroger’s face as I spoke and I could hear him huffing as he tried to decide what to do. At least his hands finally went still, and for the first time, I saw real human emotion in his watery eyes.
“What are you talking about?” Kroger asked in a strained voice.
“You want control of the Febbo operations but you don’t want to start a mob war to do so,” I said. “You need both Salvatore and Anthony out of the way…”
“I was about to take over the operation,” the lieutenant said. “I was months away from being the capo. I didn’t need Salvatore and Anthony out of the way.”
“But would you really have had control?” I pressed. “Salvatore may have been officially retired, but I imagine most of the crew would still look to him. Just in the short time I’ve been working for Anthony, I’ve seen how they always check with Anthony whenever you give instructions, and it must have been ten times worse when Salvatore was around. That must be pretty galling for you.”